Today, when the battleship marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, the veterans who parade its decks will see a ship rescued from a slow death in the Navy's mothball fleet.

The transformation had its origins in a 1984 effort to homeport the Mighty Mo, which was still in active service, at Pearl Harbor. A small task force of Honolulu business people, community leaders and retired admirals felt that a battleship at Pearl Harbor would create more work for the base shipyard, said Roy Yee, a key leader in the group.

Military leaders decided in 1985 to homeport the ship in San Francisco instead, but changed their minds during a round of base realignment and closure meetings. The ship would go to Pearl Harbor and the Navy would build a $29 million pier for the Missouri.

The pier was under construction when the Navy decided to decommission the battleship. In 1992, it was tied up between a pair of aging aircraft carriers in the mothball fleet at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard — the Navy equivalent of a used-car lot.

Undaunted, the Hawai'i group reorganized in 1994 — becoming the USS Missouri Memorial Association — and sought to move the decommissioned ship to Pearl Harbor for display. The Mighty Mo would be berthed near the USS Arizona Memorial, bringing together the "bookends" of the war, the symbols of the war's beginning and end.

The Arizona Memorial lies close to the Missouri's final berth. America's involvement in World War II began with the sinking of the Arizona and ended on the deck of the Missouri. Gregory Yamamoto | The Honolulu Advertiser

The association had tough sailing ahead. The city of Bremerton, Wash., wanted to keep the ship and restore it there, arguing that a Pearl Harbor berthing would make visiting the ship difficult for veterans.

"Our argument was the historical significance," said Yee, who served as the association's president from 1995 to 1998. "We used the bookends idea in our promotional material and in our speeches. We also said she would be standing watch over her fallen shipmates. Having her next to the Arizona made this perfect."

Hawai'i was chosen once more. In 1996, the Navy decided to give the ship to the memorial association. Pearl Harbor would be the final home for the Mighty Mo.

Yee credits the help of the state's congressional delegation at the time, but it was he who lobbied politicians from Honolulu to Washington, D.C., and promised presidents that he would take good care of the battleship.

To get the ship to Hawai'i, the Missouri association needed the Navy to approve a towing plan, convince the federal Environmental Protection Agency that no toxic pollutants or alien organisms would be brought to the state and fend off a last-minute lawsuit and lobbying effort by Bremerton officials.

It succeeded. On May 23, 1998, the 58,000-ton Mighty Mo was towed away from the Bremerton facility.

The Missouri was towed through Puget Sound's Sinclair Inlet as it left Bremerton, Wash., on its one-month voyage to Pearl Harbor. Advertiser library photo | May 23, 1998 Advertiser library photo | May 23, 1998

The Missouri arrived off O'ahu to a hero's welcome on June 22, 1998. Thousands of awestruck people watched from coastal vistas. The next day, it was towed into Pearl Harbor and tied up at the pier it still sits beside — the same pier the Navy built when the battleship was still on active duty.

Former Navy Capt. Don Hess, now president of the association, joined the project in 1998 to oversee getting the Missouri to Hawai'i and ready for public tours.

The day the ship arrived remains a high point for him.

"I got back up on her at sea, looking at Waikiki, and there was a bit of 'Oh, my God, we did it,' " he said.

The ship was in sorry shape, though. Since its 1992 decommissioning, rust and corrosion had scrubbed its exterior of its normal polish.

The teak decks were splintered, pitted and black from the weather. Paint chips were piled up in corners like windblown leaves. And the windows on the historic bridge were milky white as if glazed by cataracts.

But it was here.

Thousands of people have volunteered to do whatever they can to help restore the ship: scrubbing grime, chipping away rust, painting coat after coat of gray on metal that will never stop rusting.

Hess has stayed with the job longer than he had planned. New exhibits still thrill him.

"It's captured me," he said. "It's hard not to love it."